EFFECTS OF PERSONALITY AND TASK STRENGTH ON PERFORMANCE IN COMPUTERIZED TASKS

This study examines the effects of embedding human personality charact eristics into the computer interface. Eighty university students were taught how to use Hypercard on the Macintosh computer in a 2x2x2 facto rial design as follows: personality of the interface (extroverted/intr overted), x subjects' personality (extroverted/introverted), x task st rength (low and high). The results indicated that subjects do perceive computer software as having personalities similar to those of humans. A significant interaction existed between interface designs (extrover ted vs. introverted) and user type (extroverted vs introverted people) . Introverted users performed faster with introverted software interfa ces than with the extroverted interfaces. There were no differences in the performance time of extroverted subjects between the two interfac es. The study results also indicated that task performance for extrove rted and introverted subjects was not different for high task strength tasks but extroverted subjects performed significantly faster on low task strength than did the introverted subjects.